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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Revisiting My Tiny One

It's time again for Revisiting Wednesday, and I'm taking this opportunity to revisit something that has remained close to me since I first shared it here. That was almost four years ago. Since that time, there's another youngest grandchild (now nine months old) to fill my arms and my heart.

But I also have "spiritually adopted little ones" to fill my prayer...

I felt a desire to hold a tiny, tiny newborn. Being well beyond the age
of giving birth myself, I attributed this longing to the fact that my
youngest grandchild is now two. And yes, I think that's part of it.

But it hit me: this "call to hold" may well be a nudge from God. I
think it is a spiritual call, not a physical one.. and certainly it's in
line with the call each of us has (to some degree or other) to pray for
and help those in need.

So today I am saying yes, as an act of faith, and I'm "spiritually
adopting." There are so many little ones in imminent danger, ones so
tiny that some dismiss them as not human. There are tiny infants whose
parents have been told "there might be something wrong with the fetus.
Our advice is to abort." There are newborns lying on cold metal tables,
their skin burned with saline, ignored because their mothers, after
all, did not want to carry them to term. Leave it alone, a nurse is
told, forget it. It's not a baby.

Not-A-Baby utters a pitiful cry, flails its little arms, reaches out
with tiny fingers to grasp its gift of life. It IS a baby - a tiny,
helpless, wounded baby who needs someone to care, to love, to hold.

Perhaps I am adopting all of them, perhaps there is someone(s) specific,
but today I hold out my "arms." I pray for mothers, fathers,
grandparents, doctors, government leaders, voters, nurses,
abortionists. I pray for the parents who have just been told the
ultrasound indicates an abnormality. I pray for the
unmarried teenager, and her boyfriend, and her frantic parents. I pray
for a change in laws, I pray for a change in hearts.

I swaddle in prayer. I cuddle with intercession. I hold a tiny one in
my heart, and I say yes. I will work for you, O tiny one, I'll be your
advocate however I can.

And when they come for you to take your life, I
will be at your side in prayer...

"The mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice
to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at
killing a human embryo." Pope John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae)

THE CLOISTERED HEART IS a way of living for God in the midst of the world. It is heart monasticism that can be embraced by married or single persons, religious or lay. It's an analogy in which our lives can be "monasteries," our hearts can live in the "enclosure" of Christ, and all things may be viewed through the will of God as through a "grille."